1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to automated personal assistance systems and, more particularly, to automated systems of assistance devices that allow persons using the systems to access, manage, traverse, and sense their residence or surroundings through non-traditional means.
2. Description of the Related Art
Persons become disabled to greater or lesser degrees as a result of injuries, diseases, aging, and the like. Such disabilities may include physical limitations such as paralysis, lack of strength in various muscles, balance challenges, mobility limitations, sensory limitations, and the like. The disabilities may also include mental issues such as forgetfulness, emotional changes, euphoria/depression, speech difficulties, and the like. In many cases, the disabled persons are able to compensate for their disabilities to such an extent that they can live independent lives in their existing homes. In other cases, the persons must be placed in care facilities so that their needs can be met. A sudden change from familiar surroundings and people to unfamiliar places populated by strangers can induce relocation trauma which can affect the acceleration of biopsychosocial changes in adults already compromised. Thus, there are significant motivations to maintain persons with disabilities in familiar surroundings and with convenient access to family and friends, to the extent possible.
Current technologies provide many types of remote controls, computerized controls, and speech controls, as well as various types of monitoring devices. Many of these types of controls have been adapted for controlling lighting and temperature within residences. For example, computerized thermostat controls are common and can be programmed to maintain varying temperatures on particular days and at particular times of the day. Similarly, lighting controls can be programmed to illuminate at certain times of the night or day. Lighting controls for sensing the presence of a human and illuminating a room only when a person enters the room are known. Systems for monitoring elevated temperatures, smoke, carbon monoxide, and natural gas are well known and are often interfaced with dialing mechanisms to communicate dangerous conditions to monitoring centers. Intrusion detectors and systems which detect and record and/or report instances and times of openings and closings of doors are well known. Devices for remotely summoning help are available, such as devices which can be worn by elderly persons to summon help when falls occur.
The availability of such control and monitoring devices are typically made use of in what may be described as an a la carte approach on an as-needed basis. Even on this basis, they have provided some assistance to persons having various kinds of disabilities and limitations.
A fairly common type of disability is a limitation in mobility, that is, the ability of a person to move safely and conveniently about a residence or in environments external to the home. Mobility limitations can range from balance and stamina problems to degrees of paralysis of the legs and lower body to amputations of the feet and legs. In the past, the solution to mobility limitations was typically an unpowered wheelchair which could be propelled by the occupant or pushed by another person. More recently, wheelchairs powered by electric motors combined with manual or electrical steering controls have been developed. Additionally, vehicles referred to as scooters, power chairs, or personal mobility vehicles have been developed, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,570,739; 5,944,131; and 6,290,011, which are incorporated herein by reference. The use of the term “wheelchair” herein is meant to encompass more traditional styles of wheelchairs as well as vehicles having similar functionality, such as scooters, power chairs, personal mobility vehicles, and the like.
The current state of the art wheelchair technology uses joysticks or adaptive devices, such as blow tubes, to control the movement of the wheelchair. These adaptive devices currently use microprocessors as simple controllers. Because of the simple controllers, current motorized wheelchairs require the occupant to drive the wheelchair with a mechanical control, such as a joystick, moving to simulate the direction in which the occupant wants to move. In addition, these wheelchairs use rudimentary speed controls. For example, the farther the occupant moves the joystick, the faster the occupant goes. With this technology, the occupant must have the physical mobility and dexterity to adjust a slide or thumbwheel manually to set the range of speed.
Efforts have been made to provide autonomous or semi-autonomous controls for wheelchairs to enable automatic navigation of the chair. An example of such an autonomous wheel chair navigation system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,842,692 which is incorporated herein by reference. Typically, such automatically navigating wheelchairs make use of stored coordinates of pre-defined paths referenced to special markers to enable movement from reference positions along the stored paths to stored designations. A problem with this type of approach is that such a system is not able to automatically learn and adapt to changes in the environment, such as the relocation of pieces of furniture, appliances, or the like.